Posted
by
timothy
on Friday November 20, 2009 @06:40AM
from the they're-the-experts dept.

Christmas Shopping writes with this excerpt from Kaspersky Labs' threatpost: "Back in September, when Google launched the Google Chome Frame plug-in for Internet Explorer users, Microsoft immediately warned that the move would increase the attack surface and make IE users less secure. Now comes word that a security researcher in the Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR) has discovered a 'high risk' security vulnerability that could allow an attacker to bypass cross-origin protections."
"Google has hurried out a patch," he adds.

Then you haven't been paying much attention. Billy Rios has discovered the GIFAR problem [hackaday.com] with Java. Of course they're only looking at things that affect their software, in much the same way that Google doesn't go looking for software bugs in Microsoft products.

Why is it so surprising that security researchers employed by a company only look at that company's software, and aren't credited in the security patch reports for just doing their jobs?

What is surprising is that an Operating System vendor (Microsoft) has so poorly designed it product to allow an application (often running in user space) to access proctected resources.
This violates the very definition of an Operating System, and what worse is that MS has done absolutely nothing to address these issues despite the vast resources at their disposal.

Why can't vendors implement their own Patch Tuesdays? That is, Microsoft would release patches any time, and large vendors would simply allow them to accrue until their internal "Patch Tuesday" came around, at which time they'd test and apply the patches.

Why can't vendors implement their own Patch Tuesdays? That is, Microsoft would release patches any time, and large vendors would simply allow them to accrue until their internal "Patch Tuesday" came around, at which time they'd test and apply the patches.

The vulnerability that the patch fixes is often disclosed along with the patch. So by the time the vulnerability becomes public, the script kiddies are likely already exploiting the vulnerability against targets with their own patch schedules.

The vulnerability that the patch fixes is often disclosed along with the patch. So by the time the vulnerability becomes public, the script kiddies are likely already exploiting the vulnerability against targets with their own patch schedules.

Delaying the patch really doesn't help against independently discovered vulns. People might be already exploiting it.

Microsoft will release a patch "out of band" (not on patch Tuesday) when it is an emergency critical type issue. The others, they release on the same day so that corporations get the benefit of a single set of patches to look for and home users get all the patches with one reboot instead of a dribble of patches over the month, some of which require a reboot and some of which don't.

In linux they push patches all the time, but a company (like the one I work for) can still screen and test them before they roll out.

It works that way in the Windows world, as well. We have some kind of Windows Update server here that downloads all patches for all the flavors of Windows that we use. Then an administrator clicks approve for each patch and our local server pushes the updates to our Windows desktops and servers.

Binaries installed or modified outside the packaging system is a security flaw, not to mention impossible to maintain. Everytime Firefox opens an update dialog, it is effectively asking me to take a shitload on my Linux installation... and kill a kitten.

Everytime Firefox opens an update dialog, it is effectively asking me to take a shitload on my Linux installation... and kill a kitten.

Not on your Linux installation, but in your own home directory. Unless you run as root. If you do run Firefox as root, then you should not worry about kittens killed when firefox is updated. You kill them every second spend in your X session.

Yes, but this means any security updates or modifications that is done on system level is overrided by outdated versions in the users home directory. You can not have both, you either have controlled and maintained security or you have ad-hoc security randomly applied by users downloading and runing binaries of the internet.

That extra semicolon between the "do" and "killall" (and lack of spaces between the test operator and condition - unless you have a binary named [$TRUE]) is a clever way to prevent X from starting as root, but it'd be easier to just not type startx at all. Putting syntax errors in the.xinitrc seems sketchy.

The exploit usually comes before the fix, but not always. Firefox frequently deploys fixes for security hole they've found themselves where not even a 'proof of concept' exists. Many other applications are the same.

I know where you going here. But smart criminals don't publish proof of concepts. They just exploit and hope no-one will find the same exploit so it won't be fixed. Therefor I still stand behind my golden rule of security: the exploit comes before the patch. Although I suppose I can alter it a bit.
The hole is there before the fix.

Yes this "small price to pay" works very well in an environment where everything must be *certified* before being deployed... oh wait... no, it doesn't. Its all fun and games until half of your employees can't perform their work because some dipshit deployed before testing.

Then maybe you should have a look at this:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Updating+Firefox [mozilla.com]
Although you probably also check the fuel and oil-level of your car and tire-pressure, just so you know you can have a safe ride. It's just standard maintenance and it is (unfortunately) needed. Hopefully there will come a time when all software is 100% safe out of the box. For now that is an utopia.

I have my Firefox configured to automatically download and install updates. That's what I want. It's all the dialogs that go with that process that annoy me. I would love for FF to update itself silently without bugging me.

I fully understand that software will never be 100% safe out of the box, I just don't want all the bloody nagging dialogs!

You do realize that the ones patching those holes first had to confirm they existed?
Sure, I agree with you when you say, some people write an exploit based on a patch. But that doesn't invalidate my comment.

I imagine 90% of your updates come from noscript. The author essentially just releases updates every few days just so that he can drive up views to his site and try to make money from it.I guess that's his right, but it's annoying as hell and it's basically just made me stop updating noscript.

about:config, then search for "noscript.firstRunRedirection" and set it to false.

This means you need to run as administrator. My installs for my parents call for them being just Users and their installations don't get patched until I visit. Not an issue as I live relatively close by.

Blærg. Finding vulnerabalities is a good thing. Fixing them is even better.

Microsoft just did a good thing. Google did too. The world just became a slightly better place.

If we just fixed the rest of the softwarebugs, ended world hunger, fixed the environment and I got together with my ex (whom I still a miss even a year afterwards..I'm such a f***ing loser) the world be kinda ok.

That's the problem, IE and Windows has historically required numerous patches, it would be nice if MS would do better to get their software fixed first. Finding flaws in someone else's software is not something I want to see when they don't really have their own house in order yet.

The Chrome Frame was never a good idea for security. By making it opt-in for sites, like an other plugin, it dramatically increased the attack surface of IE. Now any attacker can exploit holes in IE, holes in the frame, or holes coming from the interactions between the two. If you want the features of the Chrome Frame in a more secure package, use Chrome.

The Chrome Frame was never a good idea for security. By making it opt-in for sites, like an other plugin, it dramatically increased the attack surface of IE. Now any attacker can exploit holes in IE, holes in the frame, or holes coming from the interactions between the two. If you want the features of the Chrome Frame in a more secure package, use Chrome.

Not only does this unholy merge of browsers increase the surface area for attack (though the idea of someone from Microsoft complaining about that is highly ironic), but like other Google software it brings in the Google updater.

For example, FTA: "All users should be updated automatically,"

Google updater allows a web page to push an update on you without any notification. I don't know what the security restrictions on that are, but I can't see what advantage that has over providing a separate update program that would justify the risks.

Google seems to be in the same state of denial about secure design that Microsoft was in in 1997. Let's hope they catch on... Microsoft really never has recovered from that era.

Isn't that how MS wants you to configure windows update - so that a web page can trigger an update without your interaction? And isn't that an option in synaptic? And can't you turn the "silent updates" option off in all three of those situations? And aren't these rhetorical questions?

Isn't that how MS wants you to configure windows update - so that a web page can trigger an update without your interaction?

No - there is a Windows service that runs and periodically phones home to check to see if there are any updates available. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with a web page.

You are probably thinking of the Windows (or Microsoft) Update website, which can't do anything automatically (you have to go there, and choose what you want to have installed), and which in any case is not

Wow, congrats man... changing "MS finds security flaw in Google Chrome Frame" to "Microsoft security researcher confirms advantages of open source transparency" is a spin worthy of Fox News. You might have a future in public relations.:)

Sure, since the only reason Google had to create this code in the first place is because Microsoft wouldn't step up to the plate. You can bet that this whole situation is an embarrassment to Microsoft; it took another company to patch their software to work correctly, when they should have been able to do it themselves. Some egos were bruised in the process, and you can be damn well sure that there's a team willing to do everything they can to discredit Googles achievement.

Sure, since the only reason Google had to create this code in the first place is because Microsoft wouldn't step up to the plate.

Is this a comment about HTML5 support? The standard isn't even established yet so it seems irresponsible for web designers to use that format for their entire framework, and premature to consider it a must-have for web browsers. IE9 will support it, I believe, though MS balked at supporting a non-final language.

I think this is all just an excuse for Google to turn up its nose at Microsoft by making them look like they're dragging their heels. It's a very Google ideal to embrace beta and subject users to technologies while they're still only half baked. Microsoft releases beta software too, but with warnings not to use the software in production. HTML5 is a good example of this difference of philosophy, and certainly so is this Chrome Frame plugin which is essentially a sloppy man-in-the-middle attack vector. It's like one of those obnoxious browser toolbars that acts as an intermediary to hijack all your search queries.

Is this a comment about CSS3 support? The standard isn't even established yet [w3.org] so it seems irresponsible for web designers to use that format for their entire framework, and premature to consider it a must-have for web browsers.

I think this is all just an excuse for Google to turn up its nose at Microsoft by making them look like they're dragging their heels. It's a very Google ideal to embrace beta and subject users to technologies while they're still only half baked. Microsoft releases beta software too, b

I very seriously doubt that they did this just to turn their collective nose up at Microsoft. Might it be that they want a more usable browser, so they get more eyes on their own products?

Google is shoehorning their own browser into their competitor's browser. This is the equivalent of Burger King selling their hamburgers inside a McDonalds restaurant. It's a very drastic move that goes too far in my opinion.

Wouldn't you consider the fast pace of development a reason to at least support the most obvious standards. If our browsers wait for the final standards, that will slow the development process down. Now before you come flaming back at me, I'm not saying everything should be released bleeding edge, but there has to be some place in the middle that could be effective. You have to admit, IE hasn't had a stellar record of being a progressive, or even current browser.

You're right that standards should be backed, but they're not standards until they are finalized. A standard means something that will not be changed, but if it's not finalized it could change at any minute. I don't think "being progressive" should be a priority of any web browser -

Web designers have, for years, been depending on functionality that isn't even on any kind of standards track, much less maturely standardized. We call it Flash(and to a lesser extent other "rich content" plugins; but mostly Flash). Web designers have, frequently, depended on it for all kinds of things, it is often considered a must-have for web browsers, and is every bit as ghastly, if not considerably more so, in implementation.

By comparison, HTML5 is positively civilized. Chrome Frame is basically just an "HTML 5 Player" plugin, whose necessity will hopefully evaporate over time. It is, certainly, a kludge; but there are presently no alternatives to that. You can either give up broad swaths of web application features entirely, and deal with the oh-so-standard world of native application development; or base your webapp features on one or more plugins(flash, java, silverlight, etc.), or you can use HTML5 stuff.

Absolutely true. As a web-developer, let me clue you (the grandparent) in... ASP is a server side programming language used to create HTML based web pages on the fly. It is exactly the same kind of technology as PHP... it's on the server and, and the client has no knowledge of it. All it gets is HTML, and it doesn't care whether it was static or created by PHP or ASP on the fly.

And just to add to the chorus, I have viewed many a webpage that was generated b

No, it's a comment on how (historically) awful IE has been with respects to security. HTML5 is just icing on the cake. If MS wants to reverse this trend they're going to have to put some serious effort into it – one decent browser, if we're going to call IE8 that, isn't enough to overlook the trend.

Is this a comment about HTML5 support? The standard isn't even established yet so it seems irresponsible for web designers to use that format for their entire framework, and premature to consider it a must-have for web browsers. IE9 will support it, I believe, though MS balked at supporting a non-final language.

No, that's not right. Parent post is rife with disinformation.

The HTML5 standard will be in development for years and will be influenced by real world feedback. This is a change in strategy that is leading to a more robust standard. Quoting from the WHATWG FAQ [whatwg.org]

It is estimated, again by the editor, that HTML5 will reach a W3C recommendation in the year 2022 or later. This will be approximately 18-20 years of development, since beginning in mid-2004. That's actually not that crazy, though. Work on HTML4 s

Welcome to capitalism and competition. Microsoft is little different from most any caplitalistic company in that once it has established a product in the marketplace, the innovation on that product is most often reduced to only the minimum necessary investment to maintain marketshare and maximize short-term profit (especially if the company is a publicly traded company focusing on short-term share value). It generally takes stiff competition, in the form of a better mousetrap, to really drive major innova

At first i thought the "google has hurried out a patch" in the summary was a quote from MS glibly dismissing the notion of fixing the problem in a timely manner, but looking through the article it seems this is a remark made by the submitter.

I am willing to bet good money that Microsoft formed a team responsible for finding bugs in Google frame just to discredit them.

In that case, why didn't Microsoft loudly announce it to the world and shame Google?

Instead, they quietly reported it to Google so that they could fix the problem. Once the bug was fixed, Google acknowledged the security researcher who discovered the bug. This is exactly how the system is supposed to work so that everybody wins - we get safer software, Google doesn't have to "hurry out a patch" (without proper testing) and Microsoft gets the credit for the discovery. The bug gets fixed without tipping off the malware writers.

And why does everybody act so responsibly? Because next time it might be a Google employee that finds a bug in Microsoft's products. Microsoft would like to be afforded the same courtesy. Similarly, if Google didn't acknowledge Microsoft, then the next security researcher who finds a bug in Chrome may decide to get their credit by going public rather than following protocol. Remember that this public recognition is the same as an academic being published in a journal. It is how they build their reputation, and ultimately how they will get future employment.

More likely, someone at a management meeting said "What does this mean to us?" and no one had an answer, so someone with that responsibility said "I'll form a team to go look at it." He got together with his highly paid coworkers over a 3 hour power lunch with martinis and found someone who wouldn't blink during the "I don't have funding or responsibility in this area" game, and assigned the investigation to them.

This person asked his team to conduct a technical review of the implementation, and in the pro

Microsoft clearly was concerned that Frame would add to the possible attack vectors into IE. They've certainly said as much. And that is a valid concern, frankly. Due to that concern, they had their research team test for security vulnerabilities in Frame, obviously with particular focus on ones that could compromise a Windows system.

And, whaddya know, they found one.

Now, if they were trying to discredit Google, the first place they'd go is (MS)NBC and put out headlines "Google Chrome Frame Has a security breach! Look at those losers!"

Instead, we see an announcement from Google that they have a patch for the defect, and acknowledging Microsoft as having found the bug and reported it to them.

Sounds to me like Microsoft was acting out of enlightened self-interest, and is demonstrating good team-playing skills by telling Google about it in enough detail for Google to come out with a fast fix.

Kudos to Microsoft for extending their security research beyond their own software and to external sources they might consider a threat. Further kudos to Microsoft for reporting the issue to Google with enough detail to make a fix possible, without exposing it to the black hats so this never became a zero-day attack.

Kudos to Google for getting a fix out there quickly. Further kudos to Google for having the respect to acknowledge Microsoft's contribution.

I'd say this is a perfect example of vendors being good players in the security arena, and respectful competitors.

Microsoft didn't make any noise about this at all. The only reason you know MS discovered it was because google credited them in the update. So what exactly would shutting up do? Would you prefer them not to have told google at all perhaps?

Yeah. For once, this case was conducted in a civilized manner, much to my own surprise. Yes, I admit I am surprised, because I expected a slightly different modus operandi from a company like Microsoft, with a uber-competitive, testosterone-saturated corporate culture. This, for me, more than any other, is a proof that Microsoft is changing.

And this story once again proves that MS could improve its public image instantly with one simple statement. SILENCE. MS, really, hire a lawyer as your public relations advisor. A good lawyer who always tells his clients to "SHUT THE FUCK UP".

I had just about forgotten about all the bugs in MS software... and this made me remember the entire long list of highly exploitable bugs unpatched for months or even years. Great job.

Of course, if you read TFA, you'd see that it was Google who credited Microsoft with finding the issue. I saw nothing that indicates MS publicized or announced the issue in any way.

Not a good day for google...first a OS that can only run web apps...completely rejected by the community...& now this...

Didn't Apple say exactly the same thing about the iPhone when it first came out? Look where that platform is now. A active app development platform, and even a vibrant jailbreak community, for those who feel Apple is too restrictive.